Through the looking glass: game worlds as representations and views from elsewhere

Abstract

This paper describes the rationale and subsequent development stages of a work in progress: a graffiti toolkit for rich spatial 3D environments and an actual world mnemonic collection enterprise using mobile technologies. The driving concept for the design of the toolkit is enabling participants to tell their own stories within the virtually represented landscapes of rich 3D spatial worlds, minimising the autocracy of software conditioning and recognising that such stories belong within a place, context. It is inspired by work which explores the possibilities of visualisation engines to transmit intangible culture. The use of graffiti as a means to give voice to those outside the official writing and recording of culture dates back to antiquity. As a practice, making marks on objects and the world holds the undercurrent of claiming the intangible or otherwise unreachable, a memory or voice which has no other platform. This project is informed by the social context of meaning and intangible culture and the manner in which interface design conditions the nature of stories. It takes the reader on a walk which connects the design of spatial worlds with the representation of landscapes through painting and maps in order to find ways to exploit “views from elsewhere” and enable connections between a lived sense of place with the navigable representations constructed within the screen.